Wine, Women and Song

by Geoffrey Clarfield (November 2011)

They Enter Cairo and Find Every Man Happy
— Rasselas, Samuel Johnson 1759

Listening to Om Kalsoum one does not need to smoke hashish. The atmosphere she creates is total, dream like and suggestive of the sexual tension in Arabic music and its lyrics which is marked and palpable. It is not the in your face sexuality of rhythm and blues and hard rock, but the tortured love of the forbidden and the attractions of lust which seem to permeate Arab society and from which so many of their customs and avoidances seem to spring.

So advised the plump matron of my hotel, a blue eyed, middle-aged woman named Suzie who was amused that the first thing a tourist like me asked for was the way to the music shops. The pyramids and the museum are usually the first port of call for foreign visitors.

I entered the first shop and greeted an elderly man in Arabic. His name was Claude and he spoke English fairly well. He sat facing me with a small television behind him, broadcasting an old concert of Om Kalsoum, the greatest popular singer to ever grace the stages and radio stations of Egypt. However he had the volume turned off. Seated beside him was a nervous, thin man in his thirties sipping a glass of tea.

Claude ignored his statement and took a poorly made instrument off the wall. It was asymmetrical and the finish was rough.

I sat down and tuned the lute and then asked for a long pick.

The young man now looked at me with a different expression on his face and said

It is an odd experience when it happens, but gratifying each and every time. A total stranger can walk in off the street but if he plays the local music he immediately becomes an honored guest. I had experienced this many times during my travels in the Mediterranean and in the Arab World. Now that the ice was broken Claude, myself and our young friend entered into a leisurely conversation about the state of musicians and music in contemporary Egypt.

Claude was seventy years old. He was born in Cairo at the time of the great depression from parents who had emigrated from Aleppo in Syria. From his name I assumed that he was a Christian. His friend Mohamed was a fine oud player and was happy to demonstrate his dexterity for me. But when I asked for one of my favorite Farid al Attrash songs he excused himself and said that he would do so after he came back from prayer at the mosque.

Within an hour of my arrival Claude was giving me his better instruments to try. I admired the sound of the better ouds and he pointed to a newspaper article on the wall describing an oud that he had once made for the great singer and player Syrian Druze but Egypt based pop star Farid al Attrash, and that had cost thousands of dollars.

He then pulled out of a drawer some uncut eagle feathers and was willing to sell them to me for little money. I politely declined and he ordered me another cup of tea. Mohammed then got up to go and before leaving he said,

Claude sipped his tea and than looked around to make sure that the tea man was out of earshot.

Claude was frustrated. No doubt when he was a young man before the Nasserite revolution, and the contemporary Islamic reaction, making lutes for musicians and spending time with dancers, he had lived a fast and furious life. He did not mention to me that the Islamic movement in Egypt regularly tries to convince female singers to step out of the public eye, stop performing in public and return to family life. They have had some remarkable successes. Clearly music, musicians, singers and their support groups are seen as potential corrupters of the strict sexual morality of resurgent Islam.

I spent the next two hours sampling a broad range of instruments on Mohamed Ali Street. Each time I was asked how it was that I had come to play the oud like an Arab, I answered that I learnt it in Morocco twenty years ago. The truth was that I had gone to Morocco because I played the oud and not vice versa. Anyway I was looking for an oud not a chance to tell my life story.

I finally did find the oud of my choice. It was not cheap by local standards, but well made and had a pleasing sound. As I was sitting in the shop testing it a young man in his twenties came into the shop and introduced himself. His name was Nabil. He was a fine oud player. We spent much time trying and comparing the various ouds in the shop.

Nabil told me that performing in public could lead to womanizing and drinking. I said I could understand that it would be hard for a Muslim to avoid drinking among musicians but that as far as womanizing goes it was his conscience that would guide him and it was up to him to whether he gave in or resisted temptation.

Somewhat surprised I asked,

He sat quietly still not playing the oud. Then he asked me,

I looked at my watch and realized that I had to return to my hotel and get ready for my flight. I thanked the owner of the shop for showing me his instruments. I shook hands with Nabil and wished him the best and then stepped out on to Mohammed Ali street, no longer a member of the musical fraternity, just one more foreign tourist walking back to his hotel.

Contemporary Islamic regimes appear to be distancing themselves from the Hellenistic stream of Islam. Instead, they emphasize the Quranic side of this civilization. In the history of Islam whenever this has happened the arts and music suffer, for musicians and artists inevitably express their individual desires and passions in ways which are persuasive and often provide models of behavior for those that are opposed by the regime in power. It would appear then that in contemporary Egypt wine, women and song are perceived as serious threats to a coming theologically based social order.

Independent India, inspired by poets such as Rabinadrath Tagore, has reclaimed its indigenous musical heritage. Its folk traditions are well archived and its traditional classical music is flourishing. So the comparative lack of official interest in and support of modern and traditional music in the Arab world is not a function of economic underdevelopment, for the riches of the Saudis and the Kuwaitis could easily bankroll an Arab musical renaissance.

That Renaissance will have to wait until a time in the Arab world where poets, songwriters and composers are left to practice their craft freely, to build on the past while creating the future. At that time musicians in the Arab world will comb the archives of the West for their inspiration, as Western scholars once combed the libraries of medieval Islam in order to rejuvenate their own culture. And they will eventually find a good record of their music and culture in the archives of Israel and other democratic countries as by that time they will have been sufficiently neglected and persecuted their own artistic tradition so much that it will have all but disappeared from the public memory. In the meantime, Nabil will agonize over whether he will lose his soul if he is paid to play the oud and Claude will remember with painful nostalgia the wine, women and song of his youth. And without perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, they both may or may not know that their days in Egypt are numbered.

 

Geoffrey Clarfield is an anthropologist at large.

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